Child Care & Early Education Research Connections

Principal Investigator(s):United States Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics

Summary:

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten
Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) focuses on children's early school
experiences beginning with kindergarten through fifth grade. It is a
nationally representative sample that collects information from
children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K
provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school,
community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social,
emotional, and physical development, ... (more info)

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten
Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) focuses on children's early school
experiences beginning with kindergarten through fifth grade. It is a
nationally representative sample that collects information from
children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. ECLS-K
provides data about the effects of a wide range of family, school,
community, and individual variables on children's cognitive, social,
emotional, and physical development, their early learning and early
performance in school, as well as their home environment, home
educational practices, school environment, classroom environment,
classroom curriculum, and teacher qualifications.

With a few exceptions, the fifth grade data file contains all data
collected from parents, children, teachers, or schools in the base
year (fall and spring), first grade (fall and spring), third grade
(spring), and fifth grade (spring) data collections. To streamline the
file, however, the data from the household rosters that listed all
household members, their relationship to the sampled child, and
selected other characteristics are not included in the file. The
composite variables describing critical household roster-based
information, such as the children's family structure and selected
characteristics of the family members, have been retained on the
file.

Specific subjects covered by the variables in this data file
include parent/child gender, parent/child race, family background,
socioeconomic status, household income, parents' education level, and
parents' employment and marital status. Other variables include type
of childcare and childcare arrangements, the child's math, science,
and reading scores, the child's learning problems and autism, as well
as the child's diet issues, food security, and school food service.
Variables about teachers include age, race, background,
qualifications, job satisfaction, their level of impact on curriculum
and policy, and time spent on classroom activities and specific
subjects. Other variables include diversity of classroom students,
parent-teacher discussions, family participation in school events and
fundraising, whether the child's school has bars on the windows and
doors, fire alarms, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers, the presence
of school graffiti, as well as bus/transportation issues.

Study Description

Citation

United States Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. Early Childhood Longitudinal Study [United States]: Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, Fifth Grade. ICPSR04440-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-06-14. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR04440.v1

Universe:
Children and their families, teachers, and schools in the
United States.

Data Types:
survey data

Methodology

Sample:

The ECLS-K employed a multistage probability sample
design to select a nationally representative sample of children
attending kindergarten in 1998-1999. In the base year, the primary
sampling units (PSUs) were geographic areas consisting of counties or
groups of counties. The second-stage units were schools within sampled
PSUs. The third- and final-stage units were students within
schools.

In fifth grade, the sample that was fielded was reduced by
excluding certain special groups of children from data collection, and
by setting differential sampling rates for movers in different
categories. Specifically, children in four groups were not fielded for
the fifth grade survey, irrespective of other subsampling procedures
that were implemented. They were: (1) children who became ineligible
in an earlier round because they died or moved out of the country, (2)
children who were subsampled out in previous rounds because they were
movers, (3) children whose parents emphatically refused to cooperate
(hard refusals), and (4) children eligible for the third grade data
collection for whom there were neither first grade nor third grade
data. Of the remaining children, those who moved from their original
schools during fifth grade or earlier were subsampled for followup.
Children whose home language is not English (language minority)
continued to be a special domain of analytic interest, and were
subsampled at higher rates. Children were subsampled at different
rates depending on the longitudinal data available for those
children.

Weight:

List of Weights

Each SDA file is set up to use a different weight. Careful consideration should be given to the choice of a weight for a specific analysis since it depends on the type of data analyzed. Each set of weights is appropriate for a different set of data or combination of sets of data.

Weight to be used for analysis ...

C6C - if the child has completed the assessment data or the child was excluded from direct assessment due to a disability

C6P - if the child has complete parent interview data

C6CPTR - if the child has completed the assessment data (or excluded from direct assessment due to a disability) and parent interview data and teacher-level data either from the reading teacher and/or the mathematics/science teacher

C6CPTM - if the child was sampled to have a child-level questionnaire completed by the mathematics teacher and the child has completed the assessment data (or excluded from direct assessment due to a disability) and parent interview data and teacher-level data either from the reading teacher or the mathematics teacher

C6CPTS - if the child was sampled to have a child-level questionnaire completed by the science teacher and the child has completed the assessment data (or excluded from direct assessment due to a disability) and parent interview data and teacher-level data either from the reading teacher or the science teacher

C56C - if assessment data are present for both spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade, or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in both of these rounds of data collection due to a disability

C56P - if parent interview data are present for both spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade

C456C - if assessment data are present for spring-first and spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade, or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all of these three rounds of data collection due to a disability

C2_6FC - if assessment data are present for four rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (spring-kindergarten, spring-first grade, springthird grade, and spring-fifth grade), or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all four of these rounds of data collection due to a disability

C2_6FP - if parent interview data are present for four rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (spring-kindergarten, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade)

C1_6FC - if assessment data are present for five rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (fall-kindergarten, spring-kindergarten, springfirst grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade), or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all five of these rounds of data collection due to a disability

C1_6FP - if parent interview data are present for five rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (fall-kindergarten, springkindergarten, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade)

C1_6SC - if assessment data are present for all six rounds of data collection (fall-kindergarten, spring-kindergarten, fall-first grade, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade), or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all six rounds of data collection due to a disability

Weight C6CW0 is used to estimate child-level characteristics or assessment scores for fifth grade. Examples of such estimates are the percent of children who are male, the percent of children who are API, the percent of children who are 11-years-old at the beginning of the fifth-grade data collection, and the mean reading score of children in the fifth-grade data collection. These weights exist not only for children who were administered a child assessment but also for children who could not be assessed due to a disability. These children were not administered the ECLS-K direct cognitive battery, but their background characteristics such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, and characteristics of their parents, teachers, classrooms, and schools are available from the parent interviews, the teacher questionnaires, the school administrator questionnaire, and the school facilities checklist. The academic and social rating scores from teachers are also available for children with disabilities, regardless of whether they completed the direct child assessment.

C6PW0 is used for child-level estimates associated with data collected through the parent interview. Examples are the percent of children whose mothers are currently employed, the percent of children who are in a particular type of child care, and the percent of children who have a library card. These weights should not be used for estimates solely using direct child assessment data but should be used when analyzing parent and child assessment data together. For example, they should be used when exploring the relationship between home literacy behaviors and children's reading skills.

When analyzing child assessment data in conjunction with teacher data and parent data, one of the three child-parent-teacher weights should be used. C6CPTR0 should be used if only teacher-level data are used without subject-specific child-level data. C6CPTR0 should also be used if teacher-level data are combined with child-level data from the reading teacher questionnaire. However, C6CPTM0 or C6CPTS0 should be used if child-level data from mathematics or science teacher questionnaire (respectively) are included with or without teacher-level data. Weight C6CW0 may be used when analyzing child assessment data in conjunction with teacher-level data alone. In this case, some data may be missing because some teachers did not complete the questionnaire, but these are the most appropriate weights for this type of analysis.

Examples

Here are some examples of how the child-parent-teacher weights may be used. C6CPTR0 is used when child direct assessment and parent data and teacher-level data and/or child-level reading data from teachers are combined in an analysis; for example, in the analysis of the relationship between parent education, teacher education, and children's reading knowledge and skills. If it is the children's mathematics knowledge and skills as reported by the teacher that are analyzed, then C6CPTM0 should be used. Likewise, C6CPTS0 should be used if children's science knowledge and skills as reported by the teacher are combined with direct assessment, parent and teacher-level data. These weights should not be used for estimates using only direct child assessment data or only parent interview data. An example of the use of C6CW0 is in the analysis of the relationship between children's approaches to learning as rated by their teachers and the teacher's type of teaching certification.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: